apologies if this is not the place to post how to's..
i am new, lost and desperate..
my front dif is getting in the way of my pit puller.. its creating a slight off center attempt and the puller is slipping off..
..i own no fork, and probably dont have the room to swing a blow to the end, as attempts to remove all tie rod bars and ball studs were horrifically frustrating..
..i fear if i slide the steer bx down, ill damage the brake lines.. its -25 here (-13F).. its not damaged, from what i can tell, and the nut came off smoothly with even foot (heheh) pressure upon the breaker bar..
..my puller is a two prong but the threaded screw is too long, and even if i had a shorter screw, itll still throw it off the 90 deg..
..anyone wish to throw a dog a bone id be so happy..
..im 5th day on this ( i got fed up fighting the tie rods and took a grinder to it all) but this is my last goal to start the new parts going..
..much thx

 

if the pitman arm is still tight on the sector shaft and the hole for the tie rod end is not wallowed, i would not change it.

 

..the pitman is tight on the shaft, im finding the fork is taking out the splines above the pitman.. I cannot get a good enough 90 degree for the puller because of the front differential plate interfering..
I've just been told by ford that the pitman arm for this model is discontinued.. otherwise I would grind the whole thing off and buy a new one..
I tried the puller, used heat I, used the Sledge, close to using my salty tears to lube it, but instead opted to leave it with penetrating oil, i used an air chisel with the fork and a friend tof beat the crap out of the Pitman.. it refuses to move , not even 1 mil

 

hate to say this, but if you have been beating on the sector shaft and using heat you most likely took out the sector shaft seal in the steering box, and damaged the sector shaft too. which will mean you probably need a new steering box also.

 

the shaft is fine.. the splines are starting to get chewed away above the Pitman because I'm trying to remove the Pitman.. so i stopped doing that.. I need the Pitman off in order to drill out what is left of the stud that is stuck from the tie rod inside of the Pitman..

 

when mine was tight i tightened the puller up as much as possible. did other stuff for about 10 min came back and tightened a bit more as it slowly released.came off after a few more times snugging up. heard a pop and tool hitting metal it was off

 

Don't know what year truck you have, or what kind of puller you're using that the diff is in the way, but I got one of these to remove the arm from my '97 Land Rover Discovery and it worked great (even though I still had to use a cheater bar on the breaker bar).

OTC 6497 Front End - Pullers

 

what kind of truck are you working on, and are you replacing with a drop pitman or what? I have broke both types of two jaw pitman pullers, best luck i always had was with large pickle fork. Maybe a mild amount of heatto help break the "Stick", just a little though, you dont want to hurt your seal.

 

I just did mine on my 92 f350... Took it to my buddies shop (I'm recovering from a car accident) and we had the same problem.

We had originally used his wheel ramp hoist ( used for mostly exhaust work) and couldn't fit the puller... Switching to different hoist and hanging the axles with frame lifted gave us enough room to get an "almost" straight pull on the arm.

Try jacking the truck up on the frame with suspension hanging and it will give you a bit more room.

Mmmm... Just realized this thread is 7 months old lol

 

can't you just jack up the bumper giving you more room between the differential housing and the gearbox? Then turn the steering whel to get the links out of the way? Also don't use a pickle fork on it-- it will just pull apart the steering gear after awhile. (been there)